The Classical World Chess Championship 1995, known at the time as the PCA World Chess Championship 1995, was held from September 10, 1995 to October 16, 1995 on the 107th floor of the former World Trade Center in New York City. Garry Kasparov, the defending champion, played Viswanathan Anand, the challenger, in a twenty game match. Kasparov won the match with 4 wins, 1 loss, and 13 draws.

Players

Garry Kimovich Kasparov the reigning Champion. Kasparov continued his dominance in tournament play. Having been the most recognisable chess player (even to non chess followers) the whole marketing was based on him. He played many promotional games on TV and internet. Because of the main sponsor (Intel) he also played many games against the computers. As everything was so heavelly based on him, Kasparov soon got fed up with everything.

Viswanathan Anand the challenger. Anand career started in 1983 when he won the Indian sub-Junior championship with a perfect score. In 1986 (aged 16) he won his first Indian championship and repeated the feat in the following two years. Since he didn't have any serious opposition, he never competed in another Indian championship again! In 1987 he won the World Junior Championship and became GM a year later (first GM from India). Anand was known for his unusual speed of play (he always played at blitz speed no matter what the time controls were) and was nick-named "the Ligthning Kid". He continued to play at blitz speed even when he reached the top level (beginning of 1990's) and played with players like Kasparov, Karpov, Short, Ivanchuk, etc. Only in recent years he has slowed down.In 1990 he took part in the World Championship cycle for the first time. He qualified for the Candidates where he convincingly won against Dreev in the first round, but narrowly lost to Karpov in the 2nd round.Anand's first major international tournament win came in late 1991 Reggio Emilia tournament where he finished first (ahead of Kasparov and Karpov). In 1992 he won Euwe memorial (together with Short), won a match against Ivanchuk (5-3), and won Alekhine memorial (together with Gelfand). In 1993 he tied with Karpov for 2nd place in Linares tournament (behind Kasparov), tied for first (with Kramnik and Short) in Amsterdam, tied for first (with Kramnik and Topalov) in Madrid. In 1994 he became the first person to win the blindfold and rapid section of the Melody Amber tournament.

After the split, Anand participated in both PCA and FIDE cycle. He qualified for the Candidates in both of them. In FIDE Candidates he was eventually knocked out by Gata Kamsky, but he took revenge in the PCA Candidates by defeating Kamsky in the final.

Match conditions:

• match was played from September 11th to October 10th, 1995 in New York, USA.
• there will be no timeouts and no adjournments (for the first time in history!)
• time controls were: 2 hours for first 40 moves, then 1 hour for next 20 moves, followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game.
• prize fund was 1.500.000 USD, with 2/3 for the winner (in case of a tied match the prize would be split)
• best of 20 games
• in case of 10-10 tie, Kasparov keeps the title

The Match

Download gamess in PGN

The match started evenly with neither player being able to break through. After 8 draws Anand scored the first win. Kasparov imediately countered by winning the next game with a model example of home-cooked preparation win (Kasparov blitzed his first 21 moves in 5 minutes). When Kasparov also won the next game, Anand somehow just fell apart and the match was virtually over.Kasparov declared after the match that Anand had been well prepared for chess, but not sufficiently prepared psychologically.

Impact on the future

Being fed up with doing all the work, in January 1996 Kasparov announced that the contract with Intel is finished, saying "I've had enough of being a slave to Intel for the benefit of the other players."PCA lost its main sponsor and soon colapsed, leaving Kasparov and his title without the governing organization. As he was still widely considered as the only "true" World Champion, the chess world made a step 60 years backwards when the title was a personal property of the champion, and when he could freely decide when, where, how and against whom he is going to defend it.